It's now just over a month and 3,000 miles since I took delivery of the new Prius and I'm impressed. It's T-Spirit spec here in the UK - with all the options, the Alcantara uphostery and is in Pure White. My previous car was a Honda S2000 and whilst the Prius cannot really be compared, the Prius is fulfilling its role as a comfortable and economical commuter car - and is saving me a bundle in company car benefit in kind tax. My daily commute is a round-trip of almost 90 miles on some of the UK's busiest roads. The journey's a mixture of grid-lock motorway, fast motorway and crawlng urban roads - and my average MPG (imperial) is around 54! What I have discovered is that using the cruise control results in inferior MPG to using the right foot - I suspect due to the relatively harsh acceleration when using "Resume". Minor niggles with the car are: - No Smart key option in UK - No HID headlight option in UK - Terrible looking wheels (the concept design's were great looking) and they should have been larger to disguise the bulk of the car - Parking brake is a sop to the US market - why no BMW 7 series (or Renault Scenic for that matter!) switch operated parking brake? - A head-up display for speed and fuel etc would be in keeping with the tech' - Faired-in rear wheels like the Honda Insight would look terrific IMHO - Graphics on the MFD are more in keeping with an '80's Commodore 64... Overall the Prius is terrific at fulfilling the role I require it to perform. More anon.
yes... the honda insight's rear wheels are terrific. btw, terrific has more than one meaning and i definately mean the latter!!!
Yes, the MFD graphics is coarse, but it needs to be in order to be functional. Could you imagine workiing with a 1024x768 display that's only 5" viewing at about 1.5 feet away? You'd run yourself off the road before you figured out what you were looking at!
